Clinton Sees Race Hate In Church Fires

Dole Also Calls For Quick Action Against Attacks

June 09, 1996|By From Tribune News Services.

WASHINGTON — President Clinton declared on Saturday that racial hostility is behind a series of 30 church fires in the South and said he will devote whatever resources are needed to "smother the fires of hatred that fuel this violence."

"Every family has a right to expect that when they walk to church or synagogue or mosque they will find a house of worship, not the charred remnants of a hateful act done by cowards in the night," Clinton said in his weekly radio address. "We must stand up as a national community to safeguard the right of every citizen to worship in safety."

Clinton added his support to pending legislation that would make it easier to prosecute in federal court people who attack houses of worship.

The House Judciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the bipartisan legislation Tuesday.

The government has established a toll-free number to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to receive information about those responsible for the church fires. The number is 1-888-ATF-FIRE.

Clinton's sentiments were echoed by Senate Republican leader Bob Dole, the presumptive GOP presidential candidate, who in a statement also called for swift action to bring to justice those responsible for "these vicious acts of hate."

On another matter, Dole, speaking Saturday in Marietta, Ga., excoriated the White House for obtaining the confidential FBI files of more than 300 Republicans and likened the Clinton administration's handling of the matter to Watergate.

"For an administration that was supposed to be the most ethical in history, the Clinton White House certainly makes a lot of innocent mistakes," he told a partisan crowd.

Dole was mute when former Clinton business partners were convicted recently in a Whitewater case. But he used the news of the FBI files to add to his expanding description of the administration as dishonest and of himself as a truth-telling alternative.

"As the disclosures and resignations and convictions mount," Dole said, "the facts paint a very different picture" from the excuses the administration offers for each new problem.

Rep. William F. Clinger Jr. (R-Pa.) asserted last week that the White House had lied to the FBI to obtain confidential files about the former director of the White House travel office. On Friday the White House said it had obtained FBI files of 329 other people as well.

Administration officials said the gathering of the files was a mistake by a low-level aide.